Written by Nicole Feleo
Big Screen Version of ‘Wicked’ Gets Release Date, Director
While no cast list has been set in stone, Universal Pictures announcedthis Thursday that Wicked will hit the big screen on December 20, 2019.
The musical has received innumerable amounts of praise for its humanizing depiction of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who melts (and assumable dies) at the end of the movie, The Wizard of Oz.
The film adaption was first announced about a decade ago in 2008. The musical is based Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. It has been announced that Stephen Daldry will direct the film. Daldry’s past credits include Billy Elliott, The Hours, The Reader, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz, the original stage adapters, are the writers for the screenplay. Marc Platt–known for Into the Woods— is producing the film.
Wicked first premiered in 2003 on Broadway at the Gershwin Theater. It has since manifested multiple productions around the world, hitting sky-high box office records. The original production starred Idina Menzel as Elphaba, Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda, and Joel Grey as The Wizard.
Millions of audiences have been captured by one of the musical’s most famous songs, “For Good.” Iy was composed as a beautiful summation of the relationship between the Elphaba and her sister, the Good Witch Glinda: “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better. But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”
